Juche and Maoism in Romania

How was Romania under Ceaușescu influenced by Maoism and Juche? I have read that after Ceaușescu visited North Korea, China, and Mongolia that he was influenced by Maoism and Juche, and after he gave the July These he had a mini cultural revolution in Romania. Does any one know what happened in the Romanian cultural revolution and if it was anything like the Chinese cultural revolution?

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Ceausescu adopted the "personality cult" characteristic of Juche. The Romanian youth was made to perform for him holding colored cards, write poems and songs, the face of Ceausescu appeared on the first page of every book.Due to the fact that religion was something taboo in the communist Romania, part of the private life, the public one revolved around the Ceausescu couple(his wife, Elena published chemistry books and was seen as a savant).

Well, I personally think that Ceausescu's "ideology" (or rather, his practical politics) was kind of an amalgam of many elements. On the one hand, he reminds me a lot of Tito, with his pro-imperialist policy, his staunch anti-Sovietism and his acting as a splitter of the socialist camp. On the other hand, it is obvious that especially Juche had a huge influence on him, as many elements of this ideology must have really appealed to him - the massive cult of personality, the core idea of national independence and autarky, and of course the somewhat repressive treatment of any kind of dissent. So I think his policy is kind of a mixture of Titoism and Juche, in its worst sense ...

All Maoist and Kimilsungist influence in Romania meant was that the period of liberalization which emerged in late 60's Romanian society was ended in favor of exalting Ceaușescu, the Romanian nation, and the country's "independent" foreign policy. There was no ideological content, just measures designed to consolidate the group around Ceaușescu, to win over the armed forces, etc.

Two quotes are instructive as to how much of a "communist" Ceaușescu was:

"The [Romanian Communist Party] has redefined and extrapolated the Leninist definition of conflicts as being 'antagonistic' or 'nonantagonistic' to the sphere of international relations in general and to the South [i.e. third world] in particular... Thus, conflicts between Communist states (China and the Soviet Union, Kampuchea and Vietnam) or between various developing countries are defined as basically 'nonantagonistic,' to be solved through negotiations and compromise only. While the Soviets admit no compromise (and neither do the Chinese) between 'revisionism' and Marxism-Leninism, or between 'reactionary' and 'progressive' developing countries, the RCP has not used the word 'revisionism' since the 1950s, when it applied it [at the time] to Tito, and rejects the very distinction between 'progressive' and 'reactionary' regimes in the South, a distinction which provides the basis for Soviet involvement in support of various radical regimes and groups there. In the words of a Romanian commentator:

'The emphasis placed on dividing the developing countries into 'progressive' and 'moderate' ones and opposing them to each other in international relations runs counter to the unanimously recognized principle of peaceful coexistence of countries with different social and political systems, feeding instead the theory of the spheres of influence, which is used to weaken the unity of the developing countries in the international arena.'

This position is very similar to that of the Yugoslavs, reflecting once again the similarity of viewpoint between Belgrade and Bucharest concerning the role and character of the Nonaligned Movement...

The very foundation of the RCP ideology, its demand that every Communist party be free to choose its own way of applying Marxism-Leninism, is linked to a rather particular assessment of the international situation as a whole. Although Bucharest does occasionally admit the existence of international conflicts, as Ceausescu puts it, 'Imperialism is much weaker than most people would say, and to overestimate its strength would lead to panic.'"(Radu, Michael (ed). Eastern Europe and the Third World: East vs. South. New York: Praeger Publishers. 1981. pp. 239-240.)

"There is no going back either to old theses or the slogans which reflected the conditions of past periods. The concept of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' has ceased to correspond to reality, and I hereby inform you and all those who did not know about it that several years ago, a plenum of our Central Committee adopted an ideological programme from which we excluded the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was deemed inappropriate from many points of view. We must not for a moment identify the dictatorship of the proletariat with the power of workers and peasants, the power of the people; those are things which should not be mixed up. The way towards socialism really does pass, as it should, through democratic reform; however, such reform should have the backing of the majority of the people. Otherwise, the victory of socialism would be impossible."(Nicolae Ceaușescu, quoted in Meeting of Representatives of the Parties and Movements Participating in the Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House. 1988. p. 113.)